


Salivate Like A Padlocked Door

by HarveyWallbanger



Category: Gotham (TV)
Genre: A simple story about Edward rubbing one out, Canonical Character Death, Disguised as a meditation on identity and subjectivity, Dissociation, Exhibitionism, Masturbation, Multi, Other, Voyeurism
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-06-16
Updated: 2016-06-16
Packaged: 2018-07-15 12:41:37
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,688
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7222783
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/HarveyWallbanger/pseuds/HarveyWallbanger
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Fucking yourself.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Salivate Like A Padlocked Door

**Author's Note:**

  * For [MillicentCordelia](https://archiveofourown.org/users/MillicentCordelia/gifts).



> An early birthday present for Millicent Cordelia. I know it's a week away, but I've got another one cooking, for the actual day of.  
> The title comes from a mishearing of a line in the Rolling Stones' song, Bitch.  
> I am not involved in the production of Gotham, and this school is not involved in the production of Gotham. No one pays me to do this. Do not try any of this at home. Thank you, and good night.

From his studies, Edward knows that the history of psychiatry is littered with odd treatments that, of course, inspire ridicule in the modern mind. This is not a charitable view, and it is one that, Edward thinks, betrays small-mindedness and, worse, ignorance. When it's happening, you often have no idea that you're making a mistake. And who's to say that your failures aren't as valuable as your successes?  
Not that Edward actually believes that. How could it be so when it's so shameful to get the wrong answer? Missteps from years ago eat at his guts in the dead of night. How could he have done something like that? How was it possible? He just doesn't guess wrong. It's not what he does.  
The more glaring your errors, the more you have to work to cover them up. It's like murder in that way: most people get caught because they simply fail to dig a hole deep enough. Evidence of their stupidity rises to the surface, where anyone could see. It's like being naked, too.  
He's heard rumors about Dr. Strange. That he likes to do things to the patients. What sorts of things, no one actually says. It should be scary, but it's not, because it's a mystery. And a mystery is just two unconnected points. It's close to a riddle, but it's really more like an anagram: everything you need to know is in front of you; just in the wrong configuration. It's truth hidden in plain sight, obscured by still more truth.  
Oswald makes both much more and absolutely no sense, now. Edward's only been at Arkham about a month, but he hasn't noticed any irregularities, much less a whiff of something sinister. If anything, the inmates suffer from neglect. Most of them aren't even medicated. When someone has to be punished, it's Dr. Strange's assistant, Ms. Peabody, who takes charge. The rumored mistreatment, the talk of bizarre experiments, would seem to account for Oswald's change, but what Edward actually sees tells a different story. One morning, Helzinger disappears, and returns in the afternoon with a headache and an incoherent story about a dead man hitting him with a box. It's sensational, but ultimately useless information. Something's certainly happening, but the truth about Arkham, Edward suspects- as it almost always is, upon analysis- is probably both odder and less interesting than the fantasy.  
Edward's a scientist, which is not unlike being a detective. He has a case, but he also has a field of hypotheses to winnow. He has evidence, but very little chance of grasping real certainty. Science has a lot of theories, but very few laws. Arkham is like events in theoretical physics: you can observe an effect, but only grope around for the cause.  
Strange interests Edward. He has power, but more than that, he has information, and the freedom to use the information as he will. If he's cruel, it's only because he's able to be cruel. Even Edward knows that most cruelty is for its own sake. Most importantly, Strange is a diversion. There's so little to do in this place. Something to fixate on is better than books, better than TV. A book or a TV show is always the same. You can play with people; make them do all sorts of things.  
In this place, Strange sees everything. Maybe even into peoples' minds. He has to, otherwise, how does he know that Edward's been thinking about him? One afternoon, Edward's summoned.  
This is it, he thinks. All is about to be unveiled. Maybe not in words, but in looks, or gestures. Perhaps in the words that aren't said. This is where people hide the bulk of their secrets. Edward's learned so much from what people didn't say.  
“Mr. Nygma,” says Strange, his manner that of an inviting uncle, “won't you take a seat?”  
Edward does, swinging his legs without thinking. He's not in the principal's office, but he feels like he is. It's muscle memory, he supposes- only, it's a muscle in his brain. Which is a stupid thing to think, because the brain isn't a muscle, but composed mainly of fat. That's why it's one of the first things to decay, after death. The ancient Egyptians knew this, and removed it before mummification. Somewhere, though, deep in his brain, something remembers what was like to be singled out by the adults, the thrill and the terror, both, that it brought. Even if he was reasonably sure that it was something good- and it had to be something good- because Edward was good- and more importantly, he didn't get caught being bad- and most importantly, he was smart- he was still afraid. That rushing, spiraling fear, like when he looks over a ledge up someplace high, or when, as a child, he thought about death or God. Don't kick your legs like an idiot, he tells himself.  
“I'm sorry, Mr. Nygma, what was that?”  
“What was what?”  
“I thought I heard you speak. Were you talking to me?”  
“No. Nothing. I didn't say anything.”  
“All right. You must be wondering why I asked to see you.”  
“Yeah. Yes.”  
“I like to take a moment to talk to all of my patients, to get to know them. I usually do this at intake, but as the circumstances of your admittance were... unusual, I didn't have the opportunity to do it, then.”  
“I'm still in the process of appealing the verdict.” He crosses his arms over his chest.  
“I understand. And I ask you to please understand that anything said here today won't be used against you. I'm not recording our conversation, because, while I hope that we each get something out of it, I don't think of it as part of your treatment.”  
“Okay.”  
“So, the first question, I'd like to ask you, Mr. Nygma- may I call you Edward?- Edward, is why do you think you're here?”  
“Because someone decided I should be,” he answers sullenly.  
“And you think that they're wrong.”  
“Well, yeah,” he snorts, “I'm not crazy.”  
“But you've spoken of hallucinations, intrusive thoughts, feelings of being persecuted by an entity that lives within you- what are these, if not symptoms of mental illness?”  
“That's,” he looks at the ceiling, “that's hard to explain.”  
“Please try to. I want to understand.”  
Edward sighs with disgust. “I was at war with myself.”  
“About what?”  
His head snaps back down. He looks Strange in the eye. “My true desires.” His voice doesn't sound like his own. The words roll and bubble in his throat, he feels them, but it's as though they're already there, waiting to be breathed out.  
“What are those?”  
“Wouldn't you like to know,” Edward laughs.  
“Edward, I assure you, I'm speaking solely from a desire to treat you to the best of my ability. I'm not motivated by prurient interest.”  
He rolls his eyes. “Okay. I guess. I guess- I just really got tired of people laughing at me.”  
“Why do you think they were laughing at you?”  
“Why were they making fun of me, or what makes me think that they were making fun of me?”  
“Either.”  
“Well, they were making fun of me because they were envious. Isn't it obvious?”  
“Pretend that it's not. I'd like to hear you express your feelings in your own words.”  
“People... well, they... they don't like it if you- Sometimes, they just don't like you. It's not because of the way you look, or the way you talk, even if they say it is. It's because they know.”  
“Know what?”  
“That you're not like them. That you're better than them. They turn it around,” he gestures to illustrate, “to convince themselves that they're better than you. But you always know.”  
“Is everyone like this?”  
“Most people.”  
“What about me?”  
There's clearly a right answer. He's supposed to say no. He's supposed to show Strange that he knows that Strange is the doctor, and he, the patient. He's supposed to. His voice rumbles to life. “You, especially.”  
“Why is that?”  
“I've done what you only dream of. Sitting here, all day, in your little office, walking around this place, master of all you survey, you look down your nose at us, but we had the guts to do it.”  
“Do what?”  
“Kill. It's what everyone wonders about. Even you. Especially you, because you're supposed to be the sanest one of all. If you weren't, how could you keep us locked up? Who would trust a lunatic to run an asylum?”  
“Beyond that, though, what did you want?”  
“What did I want?”  
“Surely, even to a serial murderer, killing is a means to an end. The primary goal is obscured by the secondary goal, the actual killing. Do you kill for revenge? To feel superior, godlike? For sexual gratification?”  
The tops of his ears feel hot. “It's not about sex.”  
“I understand, though, that you strangled your girlfriend, Ms. Kringle. Being a criminalist, you have to know the thinking on the use of strangulation is a modus operandi. Strangulation is personal. It's intimate.”  
“But I didn't-”  
“You didn't what?”  
“I didn't- I wasn't aroused by it.”  
“What about the disposal of the body, the feeling of having gotten away with it? Did you find these arousing?”  
“Yes.” He's not saying this, so it's all right. It's not really him. He doesn't mean it.  
“Could you tell me, in your own words, how it felt.”  
“Wouldn't you rather I showed you?”  
Strange raises his eyebrows. “I'm not sure what you mean.”  
“Come on. Isn't that what this is about? I know how we- how he- how I look. Don't you just wanna give this body a whirl? H- I'd even thank you for it.”  
“I don't think so.”  
Edward feels the smile open his face. “Maybe you want to watch me do it to myself.”  
“Do I have to have you removed, Edward?”  
“You don't want to do that.”  
“Why not?”  
“Because before, you just wanted to know. Now, you have to know. I put the suggestion into your mind, and it's going to eat away at you until you see it for yourself.”  
“I think you've completely misjudged the purpose of this visit.” Strange pushes a button under the top of his desk. The door opens, and two orderlies enter the room.  
“Maybe next time,” Edward says, and allows himself to be lead back to his cell.  
When he gets there, it's not as though he's woken up, exactly. It hasn't really been like that since Kristen. It's almost like being drunk- though, Edward hasn't experienced that enough to be able to confidently draw a comparison. He's aware of what he's doing; he just... doesn't care. Because nothing seems real. The words he says are fingerprints on a window: if you look directly at the thickness of the glass, you can't really tell which side they're on. That's him, when he's like this. How is he looking at the glass that it's as though neither the touch nor the traces it leaves are on the same side as he?  
It occurs to him that he should be embarrassed- or at least worried. Strange now surely thinks he's mad. But why did he start talking about himself like that, saying 'he' instead of 'I'. Why's it easier to do things if he thinks of himself as another person when he does them? Sometimes, it's because he's doing something he's not sure he wants to do; sometimes, though, it just happens. He's never sure which it's going to be, for all of his plans and fantasies, until he's doing it. Once he's begun, though, he can't leave a thing half-done. He can't.

Of course there's a next time.  
How could there not be? Strange, Edward now knows, the sudden mechanism of knowledge like a bolt sliding home in a lock, is like him. Strange won't leave something half-done. It feels good to be right. His innards squirm pleasantly. A sweet warmth sinks through his lower body.  
“I've been reading more about your case, Edward,” Strange says, “Won't you have a seat?”  
“What have you read?” Edward sits, and clasps his hands in his lap.  
“There's been some question of your basic diagnosis. You've reported many instances of dissociation, sometimes lost time, fugue states. Yet, you've been reluctant to speak about the relationship between this and your crimes.”  
“There is no relationship.”  
“I see. So, you were lucid when you murdered Miss Kringle?”  
“You've read the notes from my competency hearing.”  
“So, it's your wish to enter a simple plea of 'not guilty'?”  
“That's between me and my lawyer.”  
“Yes, Edward, but if I'm to make any determination as to your treatment- and if, indeed, you require treatment- I need to have as complete a picture of your state of mind as possible.”  
This is boring. Edward's suddenly bored. “I don't want to talk about this.”  
“Well, what would you like to talk about?”  
Edward leans forward. “Let's talk about you.”  
“We're not here to discuss me. This meeting is for your benefit.”  
“Yes, but you get something out of it, too.”  
“And what do you think that is?”  
“You like pulling peoples' strings. You want to make me do things I don't want to do. You want to get information from me that I don't want to give you.”  
“Edward, ours is a partnership, not an adversarial relationship. Anything you tell me will be used only to help you. Won't you help me to help you?”  
Edward smiles. “You want to know about how I felt, when I killed Kristen?”  
“If you're willing to tell me.”  
“I felt... sad. She was there, and then, she was gone. I was used to her. I'd lived with her for so long. Even before I had her, I wanted her; it was like she was already part of me. So, I had to have her; if I didn't get her, I'd never be complete.”  
“Why kill her, then?”  
“She was going to leave me. I told her something she didn't like, and she was going to leave me. But she couldn't. She didn't understand, that there was no pulling us apart. She was already inside of me.”  
“That's an interesting choice of words.”  
Edward looks up, as though shaken. He hadn't even realized that he'd been looking at his hands. “Is it?”  
“Heavy with connotations both sexual and alimentary. How did you feel, though, during the process of concealing her death and disposing of her body? Here, the notes are very sketchy.”  
“How did it feel?” his voice hardens like time-elapsed photography of a winter freeze. He's falling back from himself, fading into the wall behind him. “It was,” his eyes slip shut, “a complete anticlimax. I knew that I wasn't going to get caught. I knew that I was safe.”  
“Really? You didn't fear discovery?”  
“By whom? The police? They're useless. Trust me; I work with them.”  
“Yet, you were ultimately caught, by Detective Gordon.”  
“He didn't play by the rules.”  
“This was a game?”  
“Of course, it was. Jim wasn't supposed to go to the police; he was supposed to be alone. He did something-”  
“Unexpected?”  
“I was going to say 'unfair', but I suppose that 'unexpected' sums it up. Until then, though, I was winning.”  
“Back to what we were discussing: you describe it as an anticlimax. That's unusual.”  
“Why's that?”  
“Killers usually talk about a thrill.”  
“But it was thrilling. I was safe, so I could enjoy it. It was like coming home after being in exile.”  
“You also spoke, during our last meeting, of being sexually aroused. Where does that fit in?”  
Edward frowns. “That was a surprise to me, too. I don't know why it was. The first time-”  
“This refers to the murder of Officer Dougherty.”  
“Yes. The first time, it was like having an orgasm for the first time. You don't know what's happening. You think you might be dying.”  
“Interesting comparison.”  
“Actually, it's rather trite. In the popular imagination, sex and death are usually linked. I've never understood why. The third time, I didn't really have much time to think about it. The fourth-” That had been different. He'd never done it with someone else there. Afterwards, he'd put Oswald to bed and cleaned up. He'd come back, to find Oswald still awake. By then, it was late. Edward was tired. He'd been sleeping on the couch, but he hurt all over, and he wasn't thinking. Oswald had wrapped around him, smiled sleepily. Edward's mouth had fallen open like a dying fish. It was such a shock, just to be touched again. Touched like that, not with anger or lust, but with a desire for closeness. They'd fallen asleep like that. The next morning, Oswald had kissed him awake. Oswald's hair was lank, greasy. His hands were clammy. He smelled like old sweat and blood. But Edward had wanted him so much. He'd stripped Oswald, for the second time, thrown the pajamas on the floor, followed by his own clothing, pressed their bodies together. “I'm not going to talk about that.”  
“You don't have to talk about anything you don't want to, Edward.”  
“The fifth,” Edward continues, laughs low in his throat, “That was fun. I knew what I was doing. I made sure that I had time to enjoy it. Then, afterwards-”  
“Yes?”  
“I had to pull over the car on the way home to masturbate.”  
“I see.”  
“You could. If you asked nicely.”  
“I've noticed that you have a strong tendency toward exhibitionism. I don't think that encouraging it is the best course of action.”  
He stands. “Oh, I don't need encouragement.”  
It's like Edward's not there at all.  
“Don't you?” Strange asks, “You seem to thrive on it.”  
“A fellow likes to have his efforts recognized,” he places his hand between his legs, rubs his hand against himself, “but it's not necessary. Say the word, and I'll stop.”  
“What about this situation excites you?”  
He slips his hand into his pants. Before he even touches himself, he feels his own heat. His fingertips tingle. “I like talking about the things I've done. I rarely get a chance to.” He rests against the edge of Strange's desk. Strange doesn't object, so he lies across it. Papers fall to the floor. He lifts his hips, pulls down his pants.  
“You're obviously looking for a specific reaction. What is it?”  
“It'd be no fun if I told you,” he has his cock in his hand, “It's pretty, isn't it? Sometimes, I did her from behind just to watch it go in and out.”  
“Miss Kringle?”  
“Mm. Yes.” He swallows. He remembers her mouth, her tits, her hands. Her round thighs. The silky back of her neck.  
“According to what I've read, you and I have an acquaintance in common.”  
“Who's that?”  
“Oswald Cobblepot.”  
“Oh. Him.” His mouth. His throat. The surprising curve of his waist. The scar on his shoulder.  
“What was the nature of your relationship?”  
“What do you think it was?” He bares his teeth, and runs his tongue over them.  
“Again, Edward, I'm bound to tell you that my interest in you is wholly therapeutic. I'm not here to pass judgment, or to seek titillation.”  
“You want to know about Oswald?” He lifts his hips again, licks his finger and drags it down his perineum.  
“If you'd like to tell me.”  
“Well, you had him, too. I can't imagine that there's much you don't know.”  
“My relationship with Oswald was that of a clinician to a patient; nothing more.”  
“That's your loss, then.”  
“You were close to him.”  
“Yes.” He thinks of inserting two lubricated fingers into Oswald. The sounds Oswald made. The way he moved with Edward. He thinks of Kristen sitting at the dining room table; of kneeling before her and pulling her full skirt over his head. He trembles.  
“Before he came here, or after?”  
“Before.” Edward frowns. There's bitterness, now. He has no choice but to go with it. Don't be a child, he tells himself.  
“It's not childish, Edward, to care about someone. You loved Miss Kringle, once.”  
“Love her,” he says, his teeth clenched, “I still love her.” The motion of her body as she rode him; the stutter of her breath. How similar it was to the way she struggled and gasped with his hands around her neck.  
“Do you also love Oswald?”  
“I wasn't done with him.” The words come unbidden. What's happening, now? Why is he saying these things? What's he doing to himself?  
“Oh? What do you mean by that?”  
Most disturbingly, arousal doesn't wane. He's thinking of Oswald coming to his apartment, covered in feathers, grinning in the cold. “I should have killed him.” A tide of warmth drags the floor of his nerves.  
“Why?”  
Now, Oswald's neck is his hands. The chug of his pulse. His halting breath. If he broke Oswald's neck, instead of asphyxiating him, Oswald would ejaculate involuntarily. This is what happens in most deaths by hanging. Edward could have done it when they were in bed together. Continued to sleep next to him for another night. After that, Oswald would have to go where Kristen went.  
“Why, Edward?”  
“Because-” He can't finish the sentence, so he moans, lets his head fall to the side. There it is. It's not until it's upon him that he realizes that this is the first time he's come in months. He feels like he's had something removed. The calm that fills him is the calmness of the void.  
It's the ache of it, too.  
He lets his hand roll over his belly, his thigh, then over the edge of the desk. After a moment, Strange drops a tissue onto the spray of semen on his belly. Edward's not himself, but he's not anyone else, either. Maybe, he just isn't, at all.  
“Edward,” says Strange, “You still haven't answered my question.”  
A crackle of panic, and then, he is there. Lying across the desk as though he'd been discarded, dropped there. Waiting to be cleared up, like any other mess.


End file.
